Magnetic beads are super paramagnetic particles in micron or nano-scale, principally applied in Biotech industries, such as the purification of biomolecules (e.g. protein, enzyme, antibody, nucleic acid etc.); the preparation of test reagents for animals and plants by the binding of biomolecules and magnetic beads; the purification or concentration of specific protein active pharmaceutical ingredients (API); the tool for isolating and purifying stem cells.
For example, magnetic-bead technology in nucleic acid extraction uses a magnetic-bead reagent bearing special functional groups to adsorb specifically nucleic acids in samples with a magnetic control device having a plurality of magnetic bars which is covered outside by a stirrer jacket. The magnetic field will be provided from the magnetic control device to attract and drive magnetic beads adsorbed with nucleic acids, moving those samples to different reagent vessels, followed by stirring those ones repeatedly and quickly to be fully mixed. Finally, purified nucleic acids will be obtained after cell lysis, nucleic acid absorption, wash and elution.
However, each operating step for using magnetic-bead reagents has its special functionality, and the change of the reagent volume will be considerable thereby. Thus, optimum stirring efficiency cannot be achieved if using reagent vessels whose volume is all the same. A large amount of experimental space will be occupied, on the other hand, if the number of reagent vessels increases for the rise of stirring efficiency. In view of this, known reagent vessels should be improved.